Federal funding has long been the bedrock of Princeton’s research. In 2004, Princeton established its Center for Quantitative Biology with an initial $3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The center later pioneered novel gene sequencing techniques and developed new methods of computational analysis. Grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded the early work of 2021 Nobel Laureate in Physics and Princeton meteorologist Syukuro Manabe on large-scale atmospheric circulation. Only three months ago, the NIH awarded $207 million in grants to 67 “high-risk, high-reward” researchers, including four from Princeton.
In the 2024 fiscal year alone, Princeton received $58 million in NIH funding and spent over $70 million in NSF-funded research and development. This federal support now faces uncertainty under the Trump administration, which has characterized universities as “infected” by the “radical Left and Marxist maniacs.”
A Jan. 27 memorandum from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) directed a temporary freeze on federal grants and loans pending a comprehensive review of funding programs. Though the spending freeze was rescinded on Jan. 29 following a federal court injunction, more than 20 states, including New Jersey, have sued the administration in response.
In a Jan. 28 letter to the Princeton community, University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 addressed these recent developments, informing scholars that they could receive “guidance from the Office of the Dean for Research, which is coordinating University-wide efforts.” Recently, the Office of the Dean for Research unveiled a new website featuring updates, announcements, and an email address for questions: GrantsQuestions[at]princeton.edu.
Despite the policy reversal, concerns and confusion persist among students, researchers, and education advocates, who remain apprehensive about the future of science funding and the broader impact Trump’s actions are having on academic research. The Daily Princetonian spoke with community members and education nonprofit leaders about the turbulence of the past two weeks and the challenges that may lie in the next four years.
“Confusion and chaos for our institutions”
For years, the NSF has supported the climate research of Professor Michael Oppenheimer, Director of the Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment (C-PREE). However, climate research has faced heightened scrutiny under the Trump administration, which has ordered the removal of climate references and scientific data from numerous federal web pages and withdrawn from the Paris Agreement. On Tuesday, reports surfaced that the NSF’s review of existing grants flagged terms like “diversify,” “women,” and “minority,” causing widespread concern among academics.
Oppenheimer described OMB’s memorandum halting federal funding and grants as “a cruel thing to do,” emphasizing its questionable legality and the ambiguity on which specific funds were affected. “It was shocking — something you shouldn’t pull on professionals who are trying to do their work and depend on government funding,” he said.
Further complicating the situation, Oppenheimer received an email from the NSF sent to grantees shortly after the order, assuring that regular operations would continue.
“It was at the wild, far edge of anything that I, or anybody whom I talked to, expected,” he continued.
Stanley Stoutamire ’27, a pre-med student who interned with the American Heart Association-funded study EPIPHANY, also expressed confusion over the memorandum and uncertainty about Princeton’s response to a potential funding freeze.
“I think there’s a lot of things that aren’t necessarily clear at this time in terms of what policies affect who, and how those policies are supposed to be enacted,” Stoutamire told the ‘Prince.’
During Trump’s first week in office, hundreds of scientists reported abrupt and ambiguous cancellations of meetings and events on government-funded research. These disruptions coincided with a broader communication freeze imposed on federal health agencies.
Sarah Spreitzer, the vice president of government relations at the American Council of Education (ACE), a nonprofit that conducts advocacy and promotes higher education in Washington, has observed “confusion and chaos from our institutions and our researchers” in the past week. “We are trying to be flexible and rolling with all the changes that are happening across the executive agencies,” she said.
Spreitzer explained to the ‘Prince’ that ACE is actively monitoring developments and sharing updates with member institutions while working to understand how the White House’s executive orders impact specific aspects of funding and research.
“We haven’t seen such a broad freeze before,” she said.
“Research output is likely going to suffer”
Although federal judges have challenged the legality of temporarily freezing federal funding, experts warn the freeze has already caused short-term disruptions, affecting everything from salaries to research planning and hiring.
“Even if [these actions] don’t hold for the long term, they are having severe repercussions in the near term,” Dr. Hannah Safford ’13 GS17, Associate Director of Climate and Environment at the Federation of American Scientists, wrote to the ‘Prince.’
“Successful research depends on planning and continuity. Turning off support even for a few days and weeks can undermine months or years of work. Successful research also depends on having the people there to conduct it. But those people aren’t going to show up if their institutions don’t have the money to pay their salaries,” Safford wrote.
Advik Eswaran ’27, who researches Antarctic climate reconstruction with the University of Washington, emphasized the potentially negative impact of the sudden departure of scientists from federal agencies. At the time of publication, over 20,000 federal employees — around one percent of the workforce — have accepted a resignation offer from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) as part of a buyout plan.
“In an organ as big as the U.S. Federal Government, you’re going to have key scientists retiring on a regular basis — many of them have already retired since the hiring freeze was announced, and they’re not getting replaced by people in equivalent positions,” Eswaran said. “Naturally, research output is likely going to suffer as an account of that.”
Meanwhile at Princeton, community members fear salary cuts for doctoral students, postdocs, and researchers.
“If the lab funding is cut suddenly, it’s doctoral students, postdocs, the researchers who work in the lab, whose salaries are getting paid by these grants — then, you’ve got people here at Princeton who are hit,” School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) professor Kim Lane Scheppele, who has received many NSF grants throughout her career, told the ‘Prince.’ Scheppele co-led a Tuesday, Feb. 4 “Teach-in: Implications of the New Administration for Scientists and Citizens” geared towards Princeton scientists alongside professors Udi Ofer and Ali Nouri and researcher Sam Wang.
In 2023, 74 percent of Princeton’s extramural research funding came from U.S. government sources, with the NSF and NIH accounting for 58 percent of federally sponsored research funding.
Federal funding also covers not only direct expenses, but also indirect “overhead costs” tied to operations and facilities. The University regularly negotiates a rate agreement with the government to set its indirect cost rate, which stood at 64 percent as of July 2024. Scheppele says that funding to cover these indirect costs is also at risk.
Trump has also floated the idea of taxing the University’s $34.1 billion endowment. “We can survive a lot of economic chaos, but if they start going after the endowments, then that’s serious,” Scheppele said.
Concerns about universities and labs struggling to cover costs are more pronounced outside Princeton, particularly for publicly funded institutions that heavily rely on federal support. In 2024, federal funding accounted for approximately 18 percent of all U.S. research and development and 40 percent of basic research.
“Alternative sources can make up the difference if federal funding priorities shift around on the edges, but there’s simply no way they can plug the huge hole that would be left by major or sustained funding freezes,” Safford wrote.
“There’s scientific results that may be neutralized or nullified,” Scheppele said. “You may never get to finish the study you were doing. There’s the human cost of the people who were employed on these grants. Many of them will be here.”
“Devastating to a whole generation of promising scientists”
Beyond immediate concerns over research output, community members expressed broader worries about the potential long-term effects of Trump’s freeze on science, including challenges for early-career professionals seeking roles in science and government and the erosion of America’s leadership in global research.
At Princeton, several internship opportunities at federal agencies such as the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission have been canceled or put on pause as a result of Trump’s 90-day federal hiring freeze. Stoutamire, who personally knows students whose summer offers have been rescinded, expressed concern that these recent developments could influence interest in public health and science.
“When you don’t have that opportunity, the field becomes less attractive,” Stoutamire said. “What we could see is that policies like this lead to fewer people working in public health, in the sciences, doing the type of work that we so desperately need right now,” he continued.
The ‘Prince’ spoke to more than half a dozen SPIA undergraduate and graduate students, all of whom requested anonymity out of concern for retaliation or impacts on job prospects. Many revealed they were seriously contemplating shifting to careers outside Washington, such as roles in NGOs or academia.
“The hiring freeze and targeting of bureaucrats has made federal employment not only inaccessible but undesirable at this time,” one graduate student in SPIA wrote to the ‘Prince.’
The GOP’s confrontational rhetoric on academia, Oppenheimer believes, is “not a good way to encourage the best and the brightest to serve in the scientific enterprise of the U.S. ... It could really be devastating to a whole generation of promising scientists.”
Experts say that cuts and freezes to federal funding could also have international repercussions. The U.S. currently leads the world in research and development spending, although China recently overtook it in 2022 for the highest number of published and cited scientific papers.
“If we’re not investing in critical research and development, and if we’re stepping away from global research collaborations, then other countries are going to take the lead in our place,” Safford wrote.
Amid a wave of executive actions impacting higher education and particularly academic research, the Princeton community is pushing back.
On Feb. 4, faculty members hosted a “teach-in and briefing” that drew over 100 attendees, addressing threats to free speech, research, and non-citizens, while outlining steps to safeguard the academic community.
Even if federal funding is permanently frozen or reduced under the administration, Scheppele believes that the increasingly global nature of science will foster opportunities for international collaboration. “American scientists can collaborate with scientists from other countries where the funding is not being cut and not being politically conditioned, [and] form an alliance with other scientists,” she said.
“Three weeks into the Trump administration, we are already witnessing widespread attacks on civil liberties and civil rights,” SPIA professor Udi Ofer wrote to the ‘Prince.’ “This is a moment when we must stand firm in defending the most vulnerable in our communities against government abuses of power.”
Sena Chang is a senior News writer for the ‘Prince’ from Tokyo, Japan. She typically covers campus and community activism, the state of higher education, and alumni news.
Please send corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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